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Albert Woodfox is being stripped of justice by prison officials: Jasmine Heiss

Albert Woodfox Petition

Michael Mable, brother of the last imprisoned member of the Angola 3, reads a letter from Albert Woodfox on the steps of the Capitol on Monday, Oct. 21, 2013.
(Lauren McGaughy, NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune)

Albert Woodfox will
take the stand at a courthouse in Baton Rouge Wednesday morning (Nov. 13). His testimony
will cover the most recent chapter in what has become four decades of a
nightmare behind bars. Mr. Woodfox, 66, has spent 23 hours a day in a 6- by 9-foot
cell for more than 40 years.

Angola Three member Albert Woodfox is asking a judge to re-enforce rules surroung strip and cavity searches of inmates in Louisiana's prisons.

These are
conditions of prolonged solitary confinement, years in a cage with little
meaningful human contact and no access to rehabilitation programs. This
treatment is cruel, inhumane and degrading. Since March, the Louisiana corrections
department has compounded this nightmare by subjecting Mr. Woodfox to invasive
strip and cavity searches every time he leaves his cell - when he goes to see
the doctor, gets a haircut or uses the phone to call his lawyers.

These searches are
not only degrading, they're illegal - and in a strange twist of irony, it was
Mr. Woodfox's previous lawsuit against the state that set this precedent.

In 1978, he sued
the state and successfully put an end to the humiliating strip searches that he
was forced to endure in the mid-1970s. Judge Daniel W. LeBlanc's ruling
established a precedent that holds these searches to be illegal,
unconstitutional and against internal prison policy. According to Judge
LeBlanc's ruling, the prison "must curtail, and in certain instances cease, the
routine requirement of anal examinations."

The court's order
clearly delineated the nuances of the ruling: Searches may be required before
an inmate enters a segregation area or following unescorted contact with general
population inmates, but those searches must cease if a segregated inmate is
moved within the segregation area or while in the prison and under escort or
observation.

That precedent,
which lasted more than 30 years, came to an abrupt end when Judge LeBlanc died
in March, and the strip and cavity searches quickly resumed both for Mr. Woodfox
and others housed on his tier at David Wade Correctional Center. Mr. Woodfox endures
strip searches as often as six times a day. He and his attorneys tried to resolve
this without litigation for months to no avail. Now they have turned to
the court to step in.

In most states, the
law lives longer than the judge, but in this case, his lawyers are requesting a
restraining order against the Louisiana Department of Public Safety and
Corrections.

Every day, corrections
officers strip and search Mr. Woodfox and the other prisoners held in solitary
confinement. He is searched despite the fact that he is shackled in wrist,
ankle and waist chains when outside of his cell, is under constant observation
or escort and typically has no contact with individuals other than correctional
personnel.

Even when he is
left to exercise alone in a fenced-in yard - essentially a closed cage - Mr. Woodfox
is invasively searched before returning to his cell. The prison continues this
practice despite knowing these strip searches are unlawful. Unable to explain
the safety or security threats they are addressing when they search Mr.
Woodfox, they arbitrarily force him to strip until he is naked, bend at the
waist, lift his genitals and spread his buttocks so that officers may inspect
him.

To say that such
practices are an affront to one's dignity seems almost too mild.

When I called for Mr.
Woodfox's release on the Capitol
steps in Baton Rouge three weeks ago, I
did so knowing more than 50,000 people had signed a petition also calling on
the state of Louisiana to pursue justice.

Albert
Woodfox was convicted of the murder of a prison guard at Louisiana State
Penitentiary, despite the fact that no physical evidence tied him to the crime
and the key eyewitness was bribed by the state. After a legal process that has
spanned four decades, the serious flaws in Mr. Woodfox's case stand without
remedy. In December, Amnesty International will feature Mr. Woodfox's case
in the Write For Rights Campaign - the world's
largest letter-writing event. Tens of thousands of activists will write letters
to Gov. Bobby Jindal and Attorney General James "Buddy" Caldwell, calling on the authorities to
see that Mr. Woodfox is immediately released.

When Mr.
Woodfox takes the stand today his testimony will prove that you can strip a
human being of his clothes but that discarding a man's dignity is a much
heavier burden. As the state corrections department recklessly pursues
vengeance for a murder there is little evidence Albert Woodfox committed, they
do so with indifference to his dignity and with little regard for human rights
or state laws.

However,
the world continues to watch Louisiana and affirm Albert Woodfox's basic rights
and dignity. Justice may be delayed, but it will never be silenced.